The AC Milan star has 10 caps for England

With Marco Asensio to Fenerbahce all but a done deal, Aston Villa’s top brass turn their attention to other creative options who can supercharge Unai Emery’s attempts to return to the Champions League next season.

Garnacho is the leader in the clubhouse, for £40m just seven months after Villa went all-in on Asensio, Marcus Rashford and Donyell Malen in their charge to the end of the season - which came back to bite them as they looked set to fall foul of Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) without selling a major star like Ollie Watkins

Despite assertions that the club is no longer under the same PSR strain as earlier in the year - largely thanks to the sale of the women’s team - the threat was a warning that Emery and Monchi shouldn’t brush off.

And Garnacho is not the only player in Europe who could do a job for the Villans in the final third next season, as AC Milan’s Ruben Loftus-Cheek is a cheaper alternative to the Argentina star.

Ruben Loftus-Cheek is gem Premier League fans forgot

While he’s used to a slightly more defensive role than Garnacho or Asensio, Loftus-Cheek has still been deployed in attacking midfield for around two-thirds of his games in black and red and would bring a different dimension to Emery’s attack.

While Asensio averaged 11 progressive passes every two full games last season, the Englishman is more of a direct threat with the ball at his feet and the opposition defence backpedalling.

He ranked in the top 8% of players in his position across Europe’s top five leagues for progressive carries, and is in the top quartile for take-ons. Only 5% of midfielders took the ball into the opposition penalty area more regularly than Loftus-Cheek while his medium and long passing is also amongst the best on the continent.

Often the only way to stop the 29-year-old is illegally, with Loftus-Cheek drawing more than two fouls per game, and his defensive numbers stack up well too.

It was that fearsome presence on the ball that first caught the eye when Loftus-Cheek broke through on loan at Crystal Palace, as he ranked in the top percentages in the Premier League for a host of dribbling stats in 2017/18.

That got Gareth Southgate’s attention and Loftus-Cheek put in some impressive cameos at the 2018 World Cup, but never quite managed to translate that into consistently elite performances at Chelsea.

Instead, he enjoyed an explosive debut campaign in Milan, scoring 10 goals in 35 games as the Rossoneri returned to the Champions League. Yet a difficult sophomore season followed, Loftus-Cheek missing 20 games through injury as Milan slumped to eighth in Serie A, and it’s that downturn which could make him accessible to Villa.

The budget option Aston Villa must consider

There aren’t any concrete figures on what AC Milan would demand for Loftus-Cheek, but aged 29 and with two years remaining on his contract, Transfermarkt values him at €10m (£8.7m). Ross Barkley had a similar value at a similar age 12 months ago and moved to B6 for £5m though had different extenuating circumstances having been part of Luton Town’s relegated side.

Milan aren’t keen on moving on from Loftus-Cheek but given his patchy availability last season and the club’s failure to qualify for European football season with a star-studded squad including Rafael Leao, Joao Felix, Santiago Gimenez and Christian Pulisic, a rethink is in order at the San Siro and £5-10m would be a much better fee than the nominal amount they’d receive next summer.

Meanwhile Loftus-Cheeks’s wage demands would surely be more palatable than Garnacho’s, as the Londoner took a pay cut to escape Chelsea for a fresh start in Italy and he currently earns around €98,000m (£86,000) per week according to Capology.

By contrast, Garnacho’s wishes to more than double his salary were reportedly the reason that negotiations with Napoli fell through, with the 21-year-old at a very different point in his career to Loftus-Cheek. However, the Englishman could still perform a vital role for Villa next season, one that Emery shouldn’t pass up.